The Senate on Wednesday deferred to another legislative day, the consideration of a report by its Committee on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on a Bill for an Act to amend the Electoral Act No. 6, 2010, over a contentious provision of the amended Act.
The consideration of the report was suspended midway in the Committee of the Whole after the committee’s chairman, Senator Abubakar Kyari, had presented the report at plenary.
Section 36 of the original Act is amended among others by inserting a new subsection “3” to address the political logjam that greeted the last Kogi State governorship election after the death of the then All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate in the November 21, 2015 poll, Prince Abubakar Audu, during collation of results by INEC.
The committee had recommended in the new sub-section 3 that: “If after the commencement of poll and before the announcement of the final result and declaration of a winner, a nominated candidate dies, the Chief National Electoral Commissioner shall, being satisfied of the fact of the death, proceed with the election after allowing the political party, whose candidate died to substitute the late candidate with the person who scored the next highest number of lawful votes in the primaries, which was won by the deceased candidate, as if the substituted person was the candidate originally nominated by that party.”
According to the committee, the new insertion (section 3) “fills a lacuna in the law – which was recently made manifest in Kogi State where a candidate died before the final result of the governorship election was announced.”
The provision is to legalised the type of arrangement adopted in Kogi state by INEC, which made APC to replace the late Audu with Yahaya Bello instead of automatically recognising his running mate, Hon. James Faleke, who also insisted he had won the election already in place of Audu.
But Senators disagreed with one another over the new recommendation in the Electoral Act with opinions divided for the provision and against it. The opponents of the new insertion were in support of a running mate of the candidate taking over since they are contesting on joint ticket.
The report has been referred back to the committee by the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, because of the inherent contentions with a view to address the issues raised.
Credit: Leadership
